CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Knowing she shouldn't get behind the wheel of a car right then, Julie walked back to her aunt's house with her breath coming short and her gut clenching. She didn't even try to catch the bus home, passing it in a daze as she tried to make some sense of everything that had just happened.
Her phone rang as the first drops of rain started to fall. The thought of actually having to talk to someone was too much to bear. But she couldn't resist checking the message. What if it was Rose calling to say she'd reconsidered?
Phoebe's voice rang out on voicemail. "I just heard what happened and that you won't be working here anymore." Her new friend paused as if she only just realized that had come out wrong. "I hope you're okay. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have started asking about Andrew. I shouldn't have even gone near that whole conversation. I feel so bad about everything. Please let me know you're all right when you get the chance."
Julie hesitated, finger poised over the call button. She didn't blame Phoebe for anything. She even thought it was sweet of her to check in. But she still couldn't face the thought of talking. Especially not to tell someone she was all right.
She wasn't all right. She was a long, long way from that.
Tucking the phone into her pocket, Julie continued down the sidewalk, not bothering to dodge the puddles that had started to form. All she wanted was to curl up on the sofa and pretend for a little while that none of it mattered. Even though it mattered so very much.
Julie walked past a food truck at the end of her block and kept going without even pausing to wonder what it served. Just the thought of food made her stomach knot.
By the time Julie got to Aunt Evie's place, the rain had worked its way through her clothes. Oh, how Julie wished her aunt was home, rather than out with her friends. She would hug her and tell her that everything would be all right, even if it was a lie.
Then again, considering all the work Evie had put into cooking for the wedding venue and then recommending Julie for the job, only to have her lose it after three days... What a mess. Would her aunt be angry? Disappointed? The stress of trying to keep up with multiple weddings had been bad for the older woman's health. What would this news do to her?
Julie went to her room, picking up the small notebook she had originally intended to write recipes in, but which sat, largely blank, in one of her drawers. She pulled out a piece of paper tucked in between the cover and the first page and unfolded it, rereading the familiar words of Andrew's review.
Delgado's Restaurant: 2 stars out of 5.
Why had she printed out the review and put it there? She could hardly remember now. Maybe she'd thought to use it as a spur to action, a source of inspiration. Maybe she'd wanted it as a reminder of how easily things could go wrong. All Julie had known at the time was that she needed to keep a copy; that she wasn't going to let the couple of brief paragraphs that had ruined her life simply float off into the electronic ether.
To survive and do well, restaurants must offer more than bland food....
That passion for food didn't come across at Delgado's.
She'd had visions of one day being able to force Andrew Kyle to eat his words. Julie smiled grimly at that as she read the piece over again, her eyes skimming the words that she could have recited from memory.
Judging by the many empty seats in the dining room, it appears as if other customers likely felt the same way.
Such simple phrases, but they had done so much damage. When she got to the end of the review, she went back to the beginning to read it again.
Perhaps in future, the owner will couple her obvious skills with a more imaginative menu....
Strangely, two things jumped out at her from that sentence for the very first time. Obvious skills was an actual compliment. And future... Well, it seemed to imply that Andrew thought she had one.
She didn't know how long she'd sat there, with the world closed in around her and Andrew's old words in front of her. It would be easier to tell herself that, once again, her life had gone from almost being okay to falling apart the moment he had appeared.
But she couldn't lie to herself about his motives. He hadn't been trying to hurt her, hadn't been deliberately trying to rip her life to shreds.
It was simply that he couldn't understand that the way he threw himself at the world simply didn't work for everyone else. He acted on instinct and never thought about the consequences, because there never were any consequences for him.
Yet, for Julie, life seemed to be nothing but consequences. Rotten ones.
She knew she was wallowing and forced herself to put the review back in the notebook, though by then, it didn't make much difference. The words were still playing on repeat in her head.
A minute later Julie stood under the jets of the shower, turning the water as hot as she could bear and squeezing her eyes shut. It didn't make any difference. She could still see Andrew's final pronouncement on her restaurant-unmemorable-in her mind's eye, as if it had been typed into her brain in indelible ink.
She opened her eyes again to find that she was on the floor of the shower, her arms wrapped around her knees, hugging them close. As much as she wanted to deny it, Delgado's had been heading downhill for months before it closed. The two-star review was just the last nail in the coffin. And last night with Andrew, this morning's breakfast and sweet kisses...it had been her choice to stay. Her choice to take that risk.
Her choice to try for happiness.
In the end, Julie was left with one simple truth: she was the one responsible for messing up her own life. Not Andrew.
Out on the bathroom counter, her phone started ringing again. She ignored it, sitting in the shower until the water ran cold. It didn't achieve much-it certainly didn't get rid of unmemorable circling in her head-but by the time she dried off, at least she could think a little again. She changed into a combination of jeans and a dark sweater before checking her phone.
Missed Call: Andrew Kyle.
Julie couldn't possibly call him back. Even if she didn't blame him for all that had happened, she wasn't sure she could be around him, either.
Not after she'd found out the hard way that the risk simply wasn't worth it.
A quick stab of hunger told Julie how late it was getting even before she looked at her watch. She wasn't deluded enough to think that a mess on this scale would look any better after some food, but starving herself wouldn't achieve anything. However, for the first time ever, Julie simply couldn't face cooking. Even when the restaurant went under, there had been something soothing about picking out a recipe and following it.
Julie thought back to the food truck she'd passed on the way home. Would it still be there? She found an old umbrella and huddled under it as she walked down the empty sidewalk.
Fortunately the truck was still there, being run by a man in his fifties, whose apron had the obligatory grease stains and whose hair had long since been able to cover the full surface of his skull.
He beamed as Julie approached. "A customer! I was beginning to think that the rain had chased you all off. What can I get you?"
The menu was a relatively simple one. Steak sandwiches, chicken sandwiches, sausages, burgers, fries. It was exactly the comfort food Julie needed right then. She ordered a chicken sandwich. Her original intention had been to take it back to the house, but she stayed outside by the truck instead. Better to be out in the drizzling rain than all alone with her misery.
For his part, the truck owner, whose name turned out to be Frank, was happy to have her there. He told her he hadn't had any customers since the rain started. He hadn't moved locations because it would be raining just as hard anywhere else. All part of the marvelous life of the traveling food vendor, as he cheerfully put it. When a couple of new customers showed up despite the rain, Frank declared Julie to be a good-luck charm.
"That's pretty much the opposite of what I am right now," Julie informed him.
That was when she noticed the small Help Wanted sign stuck to the side of the truck. Part of her dismissed the thought immediately. Even The Rose Chalet had been a step down for her. Something like this was so many steps down that it might as well be a ladder. She'd owned her own restaurant. She shouldn't even think about something like-
"What kind of help do you want?" Julie asked before she could stop herself.
The truth was that she was currently jobless, and unlikely to get anything else. Besides, given everything that had happened, did she really think that she deserved anything better?
"Oh, I'm looking for a general helper," Frank said. "Washing up. Some fry cooking. Do you know someone who'd be interested?"
Julie knew she ought to say no. Andrew would have been angry with her for doing anything else. Even Aunt Evie would have told her that she was selling herself short.
Right then though, Julie just needed something real. Something solid. Something she knew she could do and do well.
"Yes," she said quickly, before she could change her mind. "Me."